Co-op shooter Livelock still holds up a decade later

Livelock arrived on August 30, 2016, a twin-stick shooter from Montreal studio Tuque Games, published by Perfect World Entertainment. It puts you in the role of a Capital Intellect — one of “The Few” — and asks you to do the one thing machines apparently cannot: cooperate.

Trailer, via PlayStation.

Three Machines, One Endless War

The setup is a post-apocalyptic world locked in an infinite war between machines. Livelock’s answer is co-op. You and up to two other players take control of the remaining Capital Intellects, working together to break the cycle. Quick reactions and fast decisions are the tools the game hands you. The camera sits high, bird’s-eye or isometric, so the whole fight stays visible at once.

It ships across three platforms:

• PlayStation 4
• PC (Microsoft Windows)
• Xbox One

The game supports single player, multiplayer and cooperative modes, so the war can be fought alone or with company. Its genres stack up as shooter, adventure, indie and arcade, with action and science fiction running underneath.

Diablo With Guns

The comparison that has stuck to Livelock is Diablo — the same overhead perspective, the same loop of fighting through crowds — but with guns instead of swords, and a post-apocalyptic setting instead of a fantasy one. That is a fair shorthand for what Tuque built. The twin-stick control scheme keeps aiming and movement separate, which is the right call for a game that leans on reaction speed.

The Case for Three Players

Co-op is the point. The pitch is built around the idea that the machines cannot break their own cycle because they cannot work together, and the player can. That gives the three-player cap a reason to exist beyond matchmaking convenience. A solo run is supported, but the fiction is arguing for company.

Where the Chaos Lives

The isometric view is the smartest decision in the design. In a shooter that wants quick decision-making, seeing the whole field matters more than seeing it close. Livelock trades the intimacy of a first-person camera for a clear read on the chaos, and for a co-op game about coordinating with two other people, that trade is correct.

A Solid 7.5

Livelock does not try to be more than it is. A top-down co-op shooter with a clean premise, three platforms, and a Diablo-shaped skeleton is a modest ambition, and Tuque hits it. The machines-versus-cooperation hook gives the shooting a spine, and the isometric camera keeps the action legible when three players are firing at once.

What holds it at 7.5 rather than higher is that the ambition stays modest. The genre stack — shooter, adventure, indie, arcade — reads like a game hedging across categories rather than committing to one. Nothing here suggests Livelock was built to redefine the twin-stick shooter; it was built to be a good one, and it is.

That is worth something. In a year crowded with shooters, Livelock’s bet on three-player cooperation and a bird’s-eye view gave it a clear identity. The cycle of infinite war is the setting, but cooperation is the mechanic, and the two line up. It is a game that knows its own shape.

co-op games · game review · Livelock · PS4 · Tuque Games · twin-stick shooter